


Temporal Anomaly

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Community: mcsheplets, Hurt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney hated temporal anomalies with a passion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporal Anomaly

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **mcsheplets** prompt #95 About time

Rodney hated temporal anomalies with a passion because they rarely made any sense even to someone with an IQ as high as his and with a PhD in Astrophysics. As soon as a temporal anomaly appeared, all of the well-trod theories went flying out the closest window. Even his own theories based on earlier temporal anomalies tended to crash and burn too. It was almost as if temporal physics had its own laws that had nothing to do with the rest of the universe.

Or maybe that was it.

He had once theorized that there was no such thing as temporal displacements but merely the overlapping of two or more alternate realities or universes. Perhaps the temporal anomalies obeyed the laws of physics for whichever universe had caused them, which would mean that the laws of physics pertaining to THIS universe were not necessarily valid in another. He could recite Pi to over a hundred decimal places, but what if it wasn't 3.14159... in the universe that caused the temporal anomaly. What if it differed by a high factor? What if the Speed of Light was not the same constant...or not a constant at all in another universe. What if...What if something had happened to John?

He coughed wetly, tasting the blood in his mouth.

"I'll be back before you know it," John had said minutes, hours, days ago. Rodney remembered the forehead that pressed against his, and the bloodied hands that cupped his face. "Don't die on me. I couldn't... Don't die on me." Then all Rodney could recall was the sound of running feet muffled quickly by the vegetation surrounding them.

The sun had moved across the sky. P478MU had a rotational period of eighteen hours 42 minutes. Or was that the other planet with the kids? The approximate angle between where the sun had been when John left and where it was now was 23 degrees so that meant he had been lying here for approximately two hours and 20 minutes. It had been mid-morning so that meant it was almost midday. The sun was almost directly overhead so that seemed about right....except it was getting darker. That couldn't be right. No. Wait. Two suns. There were two suns. P478MU was a binary system. He had come here to install...something... so his calculations might be off due to gravitational pull of the second star.

He coughed again, weakly.

John said he'd be back before Rodney knew it. But he _knew it_ and there was no sign of John so it had to be a temporal anomaly, which meant a change in the laws of time...and possibly physics too if the temporal anomaly had caused an effect on...

"Over here!"

The muffled shout froze the thought in his head. John?

"John!" Fuck...what had happened to his voice? Radek said they could hear him three labs over when he yelled at some moron that called him or herself a scientist. "John!"

Movement and then John was right there, grabbing his raised hand before Rodney lost the strength to hold it up. He looked a mess with half his face caked in mud, blood and scratches and there were, "Twigs in your hair. Gone...Tarzan on me?"

"That would make you Jane."

"Firefly...?"

John snorted. "More butterfly."

A flurry of motion was accompanied by a familiar accent. "Colonel." John moved and Rodney tracked him only to lose him when Carson leaned over, cutting John from his sight momentarily. "Oh, Rodney. What have you done to yourself now?"

"Me?" He didn't have the strength to glare past Carson's shoulder to where John sat tight-lipped and ashen beneath the dirt and blood, with one arm held against his body. John had been leading them when the edge gave way and Rodney ended up down here. They ended up down here. Them? "Where's Sandcastle?"

"Sand...? He's being taken care of," John murmured, except Rodney had this image in his head of Sandmaster... Sandstone... Broken body. The sharp sound of a back snapping over a rock outcrop.

Everything went misty after that, with John's soft assurance that he would see him soon.

He slipped away from the voices and twin suns, back to the early morning; back to trading hard kisses as he thrust deep inside John, before emptying himself inside his life partner. Time flashed backwards then forwards--parting with Jennifer and Earth, John's hesitant proposal once DADT and military regulations were no longer a barrier between them. He remembered laughter at their wedding ceremony, making an idiot of himself dancing because they both wanted to lead, and ending up wrapped in each other's arms, swaying to the music instead. His memories came back to the early morning, in free fall as he climaxed with John spread out beneath him, slicked with sweat and semen one moment and covered in grime and blood in the next as Rodney fell again. Sharp rocks, snapping boughs, so much green and gray flashing past until he hit bottom.

Just a safe, scientific mission to study a binary star system, intending to spend the day installing the equipment above the tree line with Sanderman.

****

When Rodney cracked open his eyes to slits moments later, he was confused because the sun...suns...had moved again. No. They had gone, replaced by artificial light. At the same moment he felt the hum deep inside his mind and knew he was back on Atlantis.

"Hey," a soft voice whispered. "How are you doing?"

He blinked until he could see John's face, automatically cataloging what his mind had not been able to process earlier. One massive bruise covered John's face around the left eye socket and cheek, and his left arm was in a cast.

"Been better."

John leaned over and pressed his forehead against Rodney's, his breath warm on Rodney's face. "Thought I'd lost you." He pulled back only to lean in again, but this time to press a kiss against Rodney's lips. "Longest three days of my life."

END


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